Dolores Huerta

Dolores Huerta is a labor leader and community organizer who has worked to promote civil rights and social justice for over 50 years. In 1962, she and Cesar Chavez founded the United Farm Workers union; she served as vice president and played a critical role in many of the union’s accomplishments for four decades. She received the Puffin/Nation $100,000 prize for Creative Citizenship in 2002, which she used to establish the Dolores Huerta Foundation (DHF). DHF is connecting groundbreaking community-based organizing to state and national movements to register and educate voters; advocate for education reform; bring about infrastructure improvements in low-income communities; advocate for greater equality for the LGBT community; and develop strong leaders. She received the Eleanor Roosevelt Human Rights Award from President Bill Clinton in 1998 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2012.